Drive to Succeed
By ALEX ISAO HERBACH
RAFU STAFF WRITER
Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007

USC’s Brent Yoshida has earned himself a starting spot on the Trojan’s kick return squad, but he knows he’ll have to continue to work hard to keep it.

ALEX ISAO HERBACH/Rafu Shimpo
Huntington Beach’s Brent Yoshida almost didn’t tryout for the USC football team, until a buddy convinced him.

USC Sports Information
Yoshida started at gunner in the Trojans’ 47-14 win
over Washington State on Sept. 22.

To play football at the University of Southern California, you have to be good—really good. The depth chart is a roll call of Parade All-Americans and Gatorade Players of the Year. You are also going to have to be patient—the amount of talent USC has could mean years go by before you got your chance to play. And then there’s “competition,” the word that defines Coach Pete Carroll’s program. You better be ready to fight for your job every day, every practice, and every game.

Considering the amount of time a player invests in the team, it can seem like a job being a Trojan football player. In other words, if you would rather concentrate only on your studies and haven’t played for many years, you might want to try intramural football.

But try and suggest that to Brent Yoshida. He will probably laugh—but he may shoulder-check you too.

Yoshida, a 185-pound senior from Huntington Beach, does not want to play beer-league football. Then again, he’s no Parade All-American.

“I only played one year in high school,” said Yoshida. “This is my third year at ‘SC. I was at Arizona State, focusing on architecture. I moved here to be closer to my family.”

One year of high school ball and he wants to play football for one of the best college teams in the world? And he wants to focus on architecture, too?

“I came here and my buddy was trying out and he told me about the tryouts on my way to class. And I was like ‘Oh well, I got class.’”

Class?! A wannabe college football player that doesn’t want to tryout because of schoolwork? That’s like an astrophysicist not showing up for work because he has a pay-per-view fight to headline.

“And I was just sitting in class wondering, ‘what if I made the team?’ So I came out [for a tryout.”

He can’t be for real, right?

If you still have your doubts, drive to Washington State University in Pullman, and ask the player that was flattened by Yoshida two weeks ago if he was real or not.

Now in his second year on the football team, Yoshida was recently named a starter on special teams, a starting gunner on the kick-off squad, for that game against the Cougars. He earned a spot last year but spent the year putting in his “service” to the team: doing drills, getting smacked around in practice, competing for the coaches’ attention. After a year of sweating wind sprints, meeting teammates, and learning sports clichés (“I was trying to help the team out any way I could”), he finally got his opportunity.

He’s been having so much fun that it would be safe to say he doesn’t miss class all that much.

“Going out there and knowing how hard I worked, how hard we worked as a team to get to that point of playing a game. It was awesome just to run down there as fast as I could.”

Crushing Cougars on national television wasn’t just a thrill for Yoshida—his parents watch every down and every tackle since he joined the starting lineup. That excitement has come a long way from the hesitation (that’s probably putting it lightly) they must have felt when they got a call from their architecture-major son that also wanted to study football. Man, studio is killing me. By the way, I’m going to be crushed by 350-pound linemen five times a week for fun.

“They were really questioning it at the beginning. I’m an architecture student and it’s really intense, really competitive. But this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to play for a great coach and a great program and a great school. They eventually accepted it and now they’re all really excited about it.”

Playing has been therapeutic as well. After he made his first hit, he said it relieved a lot of stress. “All kinds of worries just went out the door.”

Yoshida has the face you would expect of a football player: calm, focused, stoic. But the rest of his demeanor transcends mere stereotype.

He is listed at 5-10, small for a Division I football player. He also has a habit of making steady eye contact when speaking to someone, something which is not universal among his teammates. When we spoke after the team’s final practice before facing Stanford today, he was quick to break into a smile.

But more than anything, Yoshida was humble and passionate. He was thankful often: to god, his coaches, his teammates, to his friends and family.
Enthusiasm poured out of him like a liberated dam.

“It’s a lot of fun. I love the challenge. I love all the coaches, the attitude of this program. It’s all about competition, all about competing for your spot, competing against each other on the field and in life. It’s a great program, great coaches, great players.”

As a senior, Yoshida’s playing days are likely coming to a close. Listening to how driven and passionate he is for competition, it is plain to see that he thinks nothing short of a national championship would be an acceptable end to his football career. And with a 4-0 record and a No. 2 national ranking, the Trojans are off to a good start.

But he also knows that his future is not in the game. After graduating, Yoshida wants to work for a reputable architecture firm with the hope that he can one day start his own firm. Who knows? Maybe he could design the multi-million dollar homes that some of his coaches and teammates will be purchasing in the near future. (When I asked him if he had approached Carroll about designing a house, he laughed and said that he hadn’t yet, but might have to soon.)

Though he may leave the game, Yoshida hopes that the game will never leave him. He sees the values and lessons that he has gleaned from his brief career paying dividends for him in post-football career.

“Just the thought of competing at the highest level. In the business world it’s all about competition, learning never to quit; about teamwork, about leadership, what it takes to succeed, what it takes to win, I could go on forever.”